Harris Says Ukraine is a ‘Free’ Country, Fact Checkers Silent

Opinion From the Center

During Tuesday’s presidential debate on ABC News (Lean Left bias), both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris made tons of claims, several of which were sensational, exaggerated, or even outright false.

Before the debate was over, partisan media were already in high gear publishing biased accounts of the debate, with media from the left largely pouring cold water on many of Trump’s claims, while media on the right did the same for Harris.

As is often the case this close to a presidential election when emotions are running high, each “side” is zealous in advancing their preferred party’s agenda.

For instance, CNN Fact Check (Left bias) examined 34 claims, concluding that President Trump made “more than 30 false claims” during the debate, while Vice President Harris made just one. Some of these same “false” claims, The Daily Signal (Right bias) and Reuters (Center bias) concluded needed additional context or didn’t even examine at all. The same can be said for omissions going the other way.

As CNN fact checked Trump’s alleged claim that Harris met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Munich (which he didn’t actually claim) days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it, alongside every other fact checker, glossed over Harris’ claim that because of NATO’s support, “Ukraine stands as an independent and free country.”

Here, Harris is presumably referencing the narrative American uniparty politicians and mainstream media have worked to forge over the past few years – that Ukraine is a virtuous state fighting for all of Western democracy. 

Of course, there is some degree of subjectivity at play, depending on how one would define “freedom.” But the idea that Ukraine – a country with a government that has prohibited its male citizens (and dual-citizens) from exiting, consolidated media outlets, continuously postponed elections, suspended opposition parties, conscripted men of all ages by brutal means, cracked down on journalists’ ability to report, and previously enacted legislation aimed at restricting minorities – stands as a “free” country, needs context at the least.

But it appears most newsrooms were too busy engaging in their own partisan ambitions to add such context.

Just minutes before Harris’ assessment of Ukraine, when Trump mentioned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is amongst his staunchest international supporters, mainstream outlets were racing to remind readers what an autocrat Orbán is.

The Associated Press (Lean Left bias), USA Today (Lean Left bias), NPR (Lean Left bias), Slate (Left bias), The Guardian (Lean Left bias), and The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) – more or less the same cohort that glossed over Harris’ assessment of Ukraine – were among some of the most prominent to drive the point home.

The Associated Press described Orbán as an “autocratic leader” who has “cozied up with Russia and China,” while USA Today similarly lumped him in with Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping.

An opinion from Slate made less bones about it, describing Orbán as a “far-right European politician with dictatorial leanings – not really someone who is known for respecting the democratic process.” 

The Washington Post ran a column where the writer highlighted that two years ago, the European Union determined Hungary was no longer a democracy. The writer summed up the EU’s verdict by describing Hungary as “an autocracy run by an autocrat.”

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also weighed in on X. Her appraisal of Orbán: “A democracy-killing dictator.”

In the insular establishment-minded world the top Democrats (such as Harris and Clinton) and cushy salaried “journalists” live in, maybe the idea that Ukraine is a “free” country and Hungary is an “autocracy” seems right. 

Yet even the establishment itself rejects this.

According to Freedom House, which gets most of its funding from the U.S. federal government and has received significant grants from Google, Meta, and George Soros, Ukraine is actually a much less free country than Hungary.

In Freedom House’s Global Freedom index, Hungary has been given a score of 65/100 while Ukraine stands at 49/100. These scores are both down from 2022, when Hungary was at 69 and Ukraine was at 61.

By no means should Freedom House be considered the Bible of assessing freedom. In fact, in recent years, outlets like The Washington Post (Lean Left bias) and The Heritage Foundation (Right bias), have criticized the organization for being too heavily relied upon by U.S. officials and media outlets.

However, their ratings do hold some weight, especially, as pointed out above, with U.S. officials and media outlets who often frame global policy ambitions and news coverage respectively against the backdrop Freedom House presents.

In essence, the unofficial U.S. government position is that Ukraine is currently a much less free country than Hungary.

Regardless of what one makes of the state or trajectory of either country’s liberty, this demonstrates that media outlets are quick to add context with government statistics or stances when it suits their worldview but don’t care to pull the curtain back when it doesn’t.

Even giving Vice President Harris the benefit of the doubt, and assuming she simply misspoke in such a high-pressure environment, it’s moments precisely like these when media outlets should come in to add clarity. That’s how fact checking emerged as such a popular news medium in the first place.

But for mainstream liberal news outlets to eagerly condemn Hungary – which was mentioned one singular time during the whole debate – as a dictatorship, while not offering a single word on the claim that Ukraine is a “free” country exposes their bias, which at this point appears to be not only heavily partisan, but quite detached from reality as well.

Andy Gorel is a News Editor & Bias Analyst at AllSides. He has a Center bias.

This blog was edited and reviewed by Evan Wagner, News Editor & Product Manager (Lean Left bias), and Johnathon Held, News & Bias Analyst (Lean Right bias).